'Connect Day' offers services to homeless

Transients can get free lunches, flu shots and HIV tests, along with referrals.

December 13, 2010|By Veronica Rocha, Veronica.rocha@latimes.com

SOUTH GLENDALE — Organizers are expecting today's Homeless Connect Day at the Glendale National Guard Armory to be largest social services event for regional transients so far.

The event connects homeless people to 50 private and public social service providers, as well as free lunches, flu shots and HIV testing, said Natalie Profant Komuro, executive director of PATH Achieve Glendale, the city's largest homeless services provider.

Services ranging from health-care referrals to counseling and information on veterans' benefits will be free to homeless people who attend the event.

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Roughly 100 homeless people attended last year, but Profant Komuro said she was expecting more this year.

More than 60 volunteers signed up to pass out hygiene products and clothing to homeless clients attending the event, which is also where the county-funded regional winter shelter is being housed.

The shelter opened Dec. 1 and will run to March 15, but was closed last week because the National Guard needed the facility for training, she said.

The emergency shelter provides food, shower facilities, social services and beds for up to 150 people each night.

At last year's event, shelter workers helped a homeless man who was living in his van get permanent housing, Profant Komuro said.

Since the event, he has moved out of permanent housing and found his own apartment, where he continues to live, she added.

"That all came about because he came to Connect Day," Profant Komuro said.